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User: postbigbang

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  1. Re:The plans of mice and men on Ask Slashdot: Can Tech Help Monitor or Mitigate a Mine-Flooded Ecosystem? · · Score: 1

    There's a sufficient amount of "shit happens" that isn't benign neglect, rather the pernicious pursuit of profits without examining consequences, and they're huge.

    Jail is forensic. This poster needs solutions. Are there filtration methodologies available? Ways of mitigating the pollutants? Something learned from tech fab by products that can help solve the problem? PHBs are now after the fact. Cool heads and geek examinations are what's needed. My advice: find a recovery methodology financed by the sale of assets or Crown Lands so as to rapidly build the infrastructure necessary to stanch the flow. How? With what? Good questions.

  2. Re:They deserve it on California Man Sues Sony Because Killzone: Shadowfall Isn't Really 1080 · · Score: 1

    Should you try to take an objective view of 1080i, p, 720i, p, and rate them with a high quality source media, some eyes will notice the difference, dramatically. 1080i rarely delivers a poorer raster than 720anything, and it's usually under extreme circumstances like poor tuner re-rasterizing/conversion often inside a poorly designed tuner.

    The gradients are subtle, but the differences in bandwidth utilization, when you're cramming a thousand+ channel allocations into copper cable can be obviously stark-- when compared to high quality media sources playing on decent quality ATSC-equipped TVs.

  3. Re:They deserve it on California Man Sues Sony Because Killzone: Shadowfall Isn't Really 1080 · · Score: 1

    But it's not HDTV. It's EDTV, as in Enhanced Definition. ATSC can be a transport, but that doesn't make this sow's ear into a silk purse.

  4. Re:They deserve it on California Man Sues Sony Because Killzone: Shadowfall Isn't Really 1080 · · Score: 1

    I realize this. 720p is the lowest upgrade to NTSC. This is what Comcast shot for. Everyone must upgrade, and they get the minimum.

    When you rent or buy a 1080p(or i) and player to watch a video, after having seen the same in 720, the difference makes people go crazy. They feel robbed. That's how I feel. This isn't a screed about customer service, monopolies, etc. It's about resolution, and Comcast and others are delivering the bare bottom media.

  5. Re:They deserve it on California Man Sues Sony Because Killzone: Shadowfall Isn't Really 1080 · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Not so frivolous.

    This sort of deception is endemic. Comcast/xFinity creeps most "HD-TV" down to 720p. Not HD in my mind. If Sony says: 1080p, and they lied, then the litigation seems warranted to me. Usually vendors bury this stuff under the rug.

  6. Re:But... but nucular is bad! on Transatomic Power Receives Seed Funding From Founders Fund Science · · Score: 2

    After drilling down to the article, this one, should it work (big if) would burn down existing spent fuel rods by squeezing more energy from fission reactions. It would therefore have a huge amount of already-a-problem fuel to decontaminate even further.

    It's said to use uranium or thorium as a fuel source. Indeed it could fuel the expense of your desalinizing plant and conceptually a helluva lot more in a package that's much smaller that shuts itself down safely in the event of failures. So, IN THEORY, no Chernobyls etc because no contaminated water to escape.

  7. Re:Duh! on EFF: US Gov't Bid To Alter Court Record in Jewel v. NSA · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A good judge would take action against the prosecutors for any number of varying reasons, and the one that I would pick would be: vexation.

  8. Re:This doesn't seem legit on The FBI Is Infecting Tor Users With Malware With Drive-By Downloads · · Score: 1

    Hey- Google does this, and legally, and gets child porn emails!

    The ends always justify the means. That's what the world has come to.

    Sadly.

    Rule of law? Holders of the gold filigreed rulers get the law, it would seem.

  9. Re:I don't get the hype on Recipe For Building a Cheap Raspberry Pi Honeypot Network · · Score: 2

    Honeypot. Flood.

    You don't get it.

    You can put these on isolated segments, VLANs, whatever but importantly: wherever in the system you want to attract the bees.

    So long as it can send even one "ouch" packet, it's done its job, saved your ass, and saved you hours looking through even great syslog managers to find symptoms of internal infections.

    Do they cost? Not much. Aren't VMs cooler to use? No, because you want them randomly everywhere, not just in your VM farms. Yes, VM honeypots are a great idea. No, you can't simply put them in a dev pool or out in the cubes. But you *can* put a pie anywhere your network has a connection, and your switch ports allow admittance. Hint.

  10. Re:If true. If. on Journalist Sues NSA For Keeping Keith Alexander's Financial History Secret · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sadly, sedition would be vilified. Look at Mr Snowden. Enemy of the state, now exiled in Moscow. He's one of many, and as there are no controls, and the game of extortion is played at the highest level like a bad poker game, the chances of clarity, openness, and even "just the right thing" are nil.

    Martyrdom doesn't work with 72 virgins, and it doesn't work when corporate America controls the press-- especially Murdoch. Who has the WSJ by the printing press short-hairs? None other. Most of us just duck low, shaking our heads.

  11. Re:don't have money to waste on SpaceX Executive Calls For $22-25 Billion NASA Budget · · Score: 2

    Some people get a lifestyle choice with ACA coverage that's impossible without the ACA: they can breathe.

    Others might remove that choice. There's a civics lesson there. If you're talking about covering people with HIV, or who were smokers, then please charge admission for the times when you walk on water. I genuflect.

  12. Re:So, like all other rewards programmes? on Verizon's Offer: Let Us Track You, Get Free Stuff · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Your dignity sold. What every ad man wants. Everyone has their price, and the price is frighteningly small.

    Verizon already gets LBS, GPS, WiFi, and other info from most phones unless users go to fiendish depth with Snoopwall and other products to stanch the data flow. I'm wondering WHY they're asking for permission. Seems ludicrous to do so when everyone's already giving it up for free. Making it legit?

    Legit like net neutrality? Legit like stonewalling their clientele? Doesn't make sense.

  13. Re:They re-invented static scheduling on MIT May Have Just Solved All Your Data Center Network Lag Issues · · Score: 4, Informative

    Nah. They put MPLS logic-- deterministic routing by knowing the domain into an algorithm that optimizes time slots, too.

    All the hosts are know, their time costs, and how much crap they jam into wires. It's pretty simple to typify what's going on, and where the packet parking lots are. If you have sufficient paths and bandwidth in and among the hosts, you resolve the bottlenecks.

    This only works, however, if and when the domain of hosts has sufficient aggregate resources in terms of path availability among the hosts. Otherwise, it's the classic crossbar problem looking for a spot marked ooops, my algorithm falls apart when all paths are occupied.

    Certainly it's nice to optimize and there's plenty of room for algorithms that know how to sieve the traffic. But traffic is random, and pathways limited. Defying the laws of physics will be difficult unless you control congestion in aggregate from applications where you can make the application become predictable. Only then, or you have a crossbar matrix, will there be no congestion. For any questions on this, look to the Van Jacobsen algorithms and what the telcos had to figure out, eons ago.

  14. Re:I don't know any such thing on Telcos Move Net Neutrality Fight To Congress · · Score: 1

    The throttling began long ago, when we let carriers give us asymmetrical connections, e.g. (ex:) 80% download and 20% upload. This is how FIOS, and many other schemes will come unraveled. Upload speed is important if for this fact: pooling web services is now done via ISPs/MSPs and other data centers, instead of a distributed pattern of symmetrically-supplied carriers-- like your own home. It requires us to host our stuff at ISPs, and even more-- if you're delivering streaming content-- via specialized providers called content delivery networks/CDNs, like Akamai instead of some place else. This tends to optimize delivery for multicasted services and on-demand services, but screws anyone wanting to make the next YouTube without an oceanliner full of cash-up-front.

    We're already heavily throttled. This just prevents it from getting WORSE.

  15. Re:Watches? on Android Wear Is Here · · Score: 1

    And all the ostensible features of the watch that are worth something beyond geek chick are at the full whimsy of Google. Will they support this five years down the road?

    Most people use their smartphones for watches these days, and the rest is usually for glitz or weaponry. Those values-- glitz and weaponry-- aren't dependent on vendor services from a vendor that tosses them away seemingly at will. Not gonna view a map on my wristwatch, so that's out. No phone calls. Movies are impossible. Browsing would be a joke, and a built-in camera would be pretty silly.

    Dick Tracy aside, I can see some cultures adopting such a thing, but the prices are huge for such frivolity.

  16. Re:What happens if on Bitcoin Security Endangered By Powerful Mining Pool · · Score: 4, Funny

    There are still botnets, yes running on ancient XP machines with CPUs best measured in furlongs per fortnight, with zillions of captured kernels that might, for that brief moment, create hashing power of the kind that the world has never known. Dimming the planetary grid, perhaps even the very sun itself, t even phashes would be spewed higher than a volcano, and for that brief moment, a new zillionaire would be annointed.

    And at the end, we'd just have more hash. Pass me the ketchup bottle, please.

  17. Re:That's literally the worst idea I ever heard on Transforming the Web Into a Transparent 'HTTPA' Database · · Score: 1

    You're missing a bunch of steps.

    You need to diff it all, make sure it MD5s (or better). Other dependencies have to be checked. While many of the Deb repos are fine, there's then the rest of the stuff you're using-- whose dependencies might not be in a cute and highly watched (if we're lucky) spot.

    So you can apply this technique with other OS families and come up with similar questions, and no good airgap answers. You update only a core set of stuff, yes, the OS, but only after a lot of steps. And we hope you don't use a flash drive or other media that doesn't have/get an infected bootsector. Rootkits are ugly.

  18. Re:That's literally the worst idea I ever heard on Transforming the Web Into a Transparent 'HTTPA' Database · · Score: 1

    But no one ever really does that. Although you can state-freeze an OS, none of the OS makers have useful constructions that allow vetted air-gap updates via media transfer.

    The entire scheme looks like a paradise for someone that wants to crack it like an egg. This, too, shall pass.

  19. Re:Nexus 4? on Ask Slashdot: Do 4G World Phones Exist? · · Score: 1

    Ok, 100m from a tower, everyone within a 20km has fled the tower area, 100GB pipe to a core router at a NAP from the tower, and a full battery. Happy?

  20. Re:Nexus 4? on Ask Slashdot: Do 4G World Phones Exist? · · Score: 1

    Mod parent up. The "4G" we have is a marketing term, and no, the bar wasn't set too high, rather, no one wants to really put in the infrastructure necessary to deliver what we once termed 4G. Right now, it's about 3.3G on a good day.

  21. Re:If you read in between the lines on OpenDNS Phases Out Redirection To Guide · · Score: 1

    Exactly that.

    Hello, Seagate rep? Yeah, we're gonna need a freaking exatabyte to store our new hadoop engine data--yeah, the ones with the ready-to-sort web page script filters.

    How many? How many does a 53' semi-trailer hold? Really? Yeah, here's the PO #.

  22. Re:Corruption on Report: Verizon Claimed Public Utility Status To Get Government Perks · · Score: 2

    You're talking about sales models, not the wholesale carriage that telcos, actually datacom providers, are supposed to render. I'm not talking about parochial harrassment of companies, rather that regulated utilities ought to be scrutinized at both state and federal levels. The for-profit model that most utilities have changed to was a mistake. Shareholder profit, rather than the basic needs of basic infrastructure to be a world-class connected republic, is the rule.

    We're almost a third-world-quality connected country in the US. Consideration for ALL of the connectivity needs, from central switching right down to the WiFi in your home/office, cellular data transport, to tip-and-ring telephony needs to be made where the jurisdiction makes sense: central to the last few inches. The Feds are awful at the last few inches-- states much better. Decency issues are another topic for another time.

  23. Re:Corruption on Report: Verizon Claimed Public Utility Status To Get Government Perks · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You ignore the public utility regulatory agencies of the 43 states that have them. This entire morass came after the TCA of 1998 and subsequent revisions of the FCC rules and regs brought on in the post Judge Greene rulings that initially broke up the Bell System.

    Public utilities had to deal with all of these regulatory authorities, and then calculatedly lobbied to create US Federal control so that they'd only have to bribe-- I mean lobby and render campaign contributions-- to one target instead of so many. In-state vs Intrastate vs Interstate issues helped hold them to the floor.

    NYC is not a regulatory authority. NY State is, as is the FCC, and to a smaller extent, the NTIA.

    Decentralization was good for several reasons: rights of way and easements are local, even personal issues. These are last-mile issues. State issues concern everything from keeping infrastructure support fair and even (including low-profit/sparsely populated areas) to zoning policy, and so forth.

    The FCC has evolved what was once called "data communications" as a separate classification, away from telephony. Now these things are the same, but the public's needs have evolved. Decentralization isn't so much meaningless as it's the ability to tailor historical infrastructure to locally evolving needs, and is better democracy.

      It's time to conflate consumer communications into a single mandate, IMHO. It has to service we consumers, whether in urban, suburban, or rural areas. Whether it's a text, phone call via wire or cell, or a browser session, it ought to have to meet a set of basic standards, where consumers have well-known and flexible rights.

  24. Re: A Pox on Google! on Google Starts Blocking Extensions Not In the Chrome Web Store · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You're not alone, but then again, neither are they. The new world order is to host your own store, and reap the rewards, control your clientele, and do so in the superficial PR mechanism of controlling bad stuff, where the actual motive is more like: profit and gleaning market trends.

    Altruism is NOT Google's business model.

  25. Re:Surface: the only Hope on With the Surface Pro, Microsoft Is Trying To Recreate the PC Market · · Score: 1

    Part of the problem is: device drivers and the morass of problems you get when you try to get hardware device makers to think in non-Intel terms.

    Even if you got Win 8.1 to work on ARM, there's more than one ARM family to deal with, not to mention reference chipsets that are almost insanely different. Windows and Microsoft are pretty glued to Intel, although at some point, ARM starts having the density of Intel CISC and mini-CISC (Atom) and then uses more power, and becomes less useful.